By Michael Burns FORGET ABOUT THE Tucson you once knew. Forget about the past. Tucson's climate is changing; it's getting hotter and it's not going to go back to normal. We've already begun to see some initial signs. Here's one big sign: On June 29, 1994, a record high temperature was set for the month of June for the U.S. It was recorded in two different places, in Arizona at Lake Havasu City and in California at Death Valley. At both locations it hit 128 degrees. In its history, the United States has never seen a June temperature this high. What can we in Arizona expect in the near future? There are a range of possibilities, and none are pleasant. Some are downright nasty. For example, it's conceivable that within 40 years this entire region could become a wasteland, devoid of life as we know it. Daytime temperatures in the months of June could reach 160 degrees, if only for a few days at a time. This whole place would look like the worst parts of Death Valley. For worried environmentalists, the June U.S. record was one more clue that something strange is happening to our planet's climate. In recent years, there have been thousands of clues, all pointing in the same direction. But few have been paying attention. The clues involve various scientific disciplines, including meteorology, geology, botany, and biology; but if we take these clues and analyze them, they lead to one inescapable conclusion: Global warming has begun in earnest. Of all the cities on earth, the people of Tucson and Phoenix stand to suffer the most. We may be among the first environmental refugees. In March of 1995, Angela Merkel, Germany's environment minister, said, "We have come to recognize the greenhouse effect is capable of destroying humanity." She spoke at a United Nations-sponsored conference, the goal of which was to find ways for nations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, the primary cause of global warming. The conference failed miserably. No government in these tough economic times, including the Clinton Administration, was willing to sign onto a program that would restrict the use of fossil fuels. Timothy E. Wirth, undersecretary of state, led the U.S. delegation to the conference, and his feeble excuse for not taking any action was that the Republican-controlled congress would never go along with any agreement. What he didn't say was that the oil companies have heavily lobbied the Clinton White House. Needless to say, the Persian Gulf potentates and the oil companies absolutely want no restrictions placed on their operations. Yet evidence is accumulating that drastic action is needed and needed fast. The Chicago heatwave of July 1995 that killed hundreds of people is just the beginning of what Americans can expect as the climate grows hotter. Merkel had it exactly right. The potential intensification in the earth's greenhouse effect is capable of killing all of us. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT is not just a figment of environmentalists' imagination. Any basic astronomy textbook mentions the earth having a greenhouse effect. If the earth did not have a small amount of carbon dioxide and water vapor present in its atmosphere, we'd have a frozen planet. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are invisible gases, completely transparent to visible light. Both trap infrared energy, the heat part of the spectrum, within the atmosphere. We have not had a warm planet just because of sunlight, but because the earth's atmosphere works in combination with the sun. However, our environment appears to be very finely balanced. If we don't have enough greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, we'll freeze; but if we get too much, we'll literally boil. But before we boil, certain events will begin to happen. Unfortunately, we in Southern Arizona will be among the first to bear witness to these events. An enhanced greenhouse effect will lead to daytime temperatures on the earth never before thought possible. Scientists who've spoken out about global warming thus far have been speaking only in terms of increases in average global temperatures. They haven't spoken in terms of sudden and dramatic temperature spikes caused by intense heatwaves. Tucson and Phoenix will soon see daytime temperatures in June and July of 140 degrees, again if only for a few days at a time. Although this would be a dry heat, neither city is prepared for this kind of weather. Recently, the authorities in Phoenix have been moving around their official weather station sites in a laughable effort to find cooler readings. When global warming decides to smother the Valley of the Sun, it won't matter where they have their thermometers. The American Midwest and Southeast will see temperature spikes approaching 125 degrees, but the situation will be much worse because the attendant high humidity will prove to be a lethal combination. In these regions, a widespread heatwave under conditions of global warming will kill hundreds of thousands of people, and what happened in Chicago last July will seem like insignificant ancient history. These kinds of spikes are not decades away, either. Events are now moving rapidly. A monster heatwave could happen on any given summer day beginning this year. And June is only months away. Sound unbelievable? Before you render judgment, consider some of the other signals the earth has been sending us. Let's expand our horizons beyond Southern Arizona. DURING EACH OF the past two years, 1994 and 1995, there has been a heatwave in the desert regions of India and Pakistan during the months of May and June prior to the onset of the monsoonal rains. In both years, hundreds of people died as a direct result of the heat. The daytime temperatures were hitting the low 120s for weeks on end, and since electricity in the remote areas of the Indian subcontinent is rare and there is little air conditioning, there was simply nowhere for people to hide from the heat. These temperatures were far above the norm for these regions for these months of the year. Unfortunately, these heatwaves were not properly reported by the American media, but they were more signs from afar that something bad is beginning to happen. Closer to home, the late spring and summer of 1995 in Great Britain was a monster. It was the hottest spring/summer they've ever witnessed. For the English, this was particularly disturbing, because they've been keeping precise weather records for hundreds of years. This heat was not isolated. There were other heatwaves throughout the Northern Hemisphere in 1995. In May, a heatwave struck Israel. And it was the hottest May that Moscow has seen since the Russians started keeping records. It got so hot in Moscow that the airport runways began cracking up. This is an important sign--much more important than if it were to occur in, say, Phoenix--because Moscow is so far north. June and July brought heatwaves to most of Europe and the Middle East, and, of course, to the United States and Canada. Is this a trend or just some cyclical event? Dr. James Hansen and a team of scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies analyzed global weather records dating back to 1860 and found the decade of the 1980s was the hottest since we started keeping accurate weather records. Of those years, 1988 was definitely the hottest. Remember 1988? That was the year Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming burned. The 1990s will be even hotter. Already, the years 1990, 1991, 1994, and 1995 were hotter than 1988. In January, British scientists announced their findings that 1995 was the hottest year on record--period. And so the trend continues. The years 1992 and 1993 saw some cooling, but this is readily explained. In June of 1991, a huge volcanic eruption on Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines clouded the earth over with ash and dust. This acted like a parasol, preventing some sunlight from getting through the atmosphere. By 1994, Pinatubo's dust had fallen back to earth, and temperatures resumed their climb. For example, Japan had the hottest summer since they started keeping records. For the first time in memory, Japan's mountains lost their snowcaps. In June of '94, Tucson was setting heat records almost every day. In case you're hoping another volcano might save us, you should know Pinatubo's eruption caused some problems. In the era of global warming, volcanoes are a two-edged sword. The same particles of volcanic dust and ash which shade the earth from the sun also provide a perfect surface upon which water vapor is able to condense. Meteorologists call these particles condensation nuclei. Water vapor is the gaseous form of water. It's created when water evaporates from the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and land. It can rise tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere. When this gas is pulled out of the atmosphere and begins to condense on a surface, then we begin to see micro-droplets of water, hundreds of times smaller than a raindrop. These drops begin to collect together and clouds begin to form. It's no longer a gas, but has now reverted to its liquid form. Then it rains and falls back to earth, eventually to evaporate and begin its journey again. This is known as the hydrologic cycle. Because the earth is a water planet, this cycle is never-ending. If we see more volcanic eruptions on the earth, condensation nuclei will increase; and because of global warming, as water vapor increases, all that volcanic ash and water vapor become a deadly combination giving rise to torrential rains and flooding. But even without considering volcanoes, increased water vapor is becoming a major problem. Scientists at the National Climatic Data Center at Asheville, North Carolina, have collected data from 647 sites around the world. Their findings are very alarming. They say the world is warming and that a warmer world will have and hold more water vapor, leading to "precipitation intensity." Remember the Midwest floods of the summer of 1993? Since 1993, there have been major storms and flooding around the planet that have bordered on being apocalyptic. The American flooding in 1993 was just part of the story. That same summer China saw storms and flooding that were more extensive than America's. In January 1995, Europe saw major flooding caused entirely by torrential rain, not by spring ice melt. Other major floods around the globe since 1993 are too numerous to mention, but they're definitely part of an evolving pattern: Almost all of these floods are being caused by torrential rain. In many of these storms, it rained one inch per hour for 20 to 30 consecutive hours. WHILE THE EXTENT of torrential rain and flooding around the globe is becoming mind-boggling, the American news media are attributing none of this to global warming. That's too bad--perhaps if Americans would start making the connection between these strange storms and the autos they drive and their local coal-fired utilities, they might force the process of change away from fossil fuels. But these storms have certainly caught the attention of the world's major insurance companies. Their recent storm-related losses have been catastrophic and completely unexpected. Insurance executives are now taking global warming and carbon dioxide emissions much more seriously. They're also re-analyzing what their potential future losses might be. We can probably guess who'll pay the increases in insurance premiums. In terms of harsh, wet weather as opposed to dry, arid weather, thus far regional and seasonal conditions have been relative as global warming gets underway. The conditions are simply becoming more intense. For example, here in the United States, the Southeast is getting more rain and flooding, whereas the Southwest is becoming more arid. That's not to say the Southeast won't at some point experience a drought or the Southwest won't get a flood. The dynamics of the earth's weather are too complicated, and we can't make any pat predictions for entire regions over a given period. Within the disciplines of botany and biology, there have also been clues that things are beginning to go awry. Scientists and researchers have reported seeing flowers where they once never existed--for instance, high up in the Alps. Also, British researchers have reported a rapid expansion of certain plants in Antarctica, indicating the temperatures there are increasing. In Russia, in July of 1995, doctors reported seeing venomous snakes in Arctic regions where they've never been seen before. The doctors attributed this phenomenon to a warming habitat. This Arctic warming is corroborated by European scientists who announced, also in July, that they believe Siberia is warmer now than it has been in more than 1,000 years. And another group of scientists, American geologists, reported that sea ice in the Arctic has been reduced about 20 percent since 1973. In the fields of oceanography and marine biology there have been signs of changes. In the ocean off the California coast, species of sea life are moving farther north with each passing year. This is because the water temperatures are increasing, according to scientists at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. Increasing water temperatures in vast areas of the Pacific are corroborated by scientists at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. John McGowan of Scripps has reported that since 1951, the average water temperature off the California coast has increased by approximately 3 degrees. In geological terms, this kind of rapid change is incredible. The increase in water temperature has caused zooplankton to decline by 80 percent. This has led to a stunning loss of many sea species dependent upon zooplankton for survival. McGowan's findings are confirmed by Dick Veit, zoologist at the University of Washington. He cites other studies which show the same thing. There has been an overwhelming loss of sea life all along the Pacific coast attributed to a warming ocean. If we accept the fact that oceanic water temperatures are increasing, then we must accept the fact that we'll see increasing amounts of water vapor present in the atmosphere. After all, the warmer the water gets, the more quickly it evaporates. This can only lead to more torrential rain and more flooding in those regions where heavy rainfall is normal during certain seasons--for example, we should expect more tropical storms hitting the Gulf Coast during the months of July and August. In the winter, we should expect to see heavier snowfalls, at least during the initial stages of global warming. After all, snow is just a form of precipitation. People who say, "Look at all the snow that's falling back East--there's no such thing as global warming," are dead wrong. They don't understand the basic mechanisms involved in weather, and they certainly don't understand some basic principles of astronomy. Our planet is divided into two distinct hemispheres, northern and southern. If you laid the globe out flat, you'd quickly see most of the Southern Hemisphere consists of water, whereas most of the Northern Hemisphere consists of land. During our winter, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, the part of the planet receiving most of the sunlight is that part where the most water exists. Over the past few years, water temperatures in the South Pacific have been excessive. Given this, water vapor is going to flow all over the planet; and when it comes in contact with cold Arctic air, it's going to condense and turn into snow and freezing rain. During our winter, we are actually about five million kilometers closer to the sun than during the summer, due to the earth's elliptical orbit. Yet, over all, the earth is actually warmer during our winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The most important factor governing heat and cold in the Northern Hemisphere is the angle of the incoming solar energy. Since the North Pole is facing away from the sun in the winter, it's always going to be cold during December, January and February. So, even during conditions of global warming, we can expect to see snow in the winter; and given excess water vapor, we can expect to see heavy snows. Warmer ocean temperatures will also lead to more and bigger hurricanes (or typhoons as they're called in the Western Pacific). Hurricanes need warm water to develop, although their formation is difficult to predict, because in order to begin their cyclonic movement they also need ideal wind conditions. Still, we've been seeing bigger, more powerful hurricanes in the 1990s all around the earth. In 1994 we saw Hurricane John form in the Central Pacific. John was the longest-lived, most powerful hurricane ever seen in this part of the world. If a system like John were to strike the eastern seaboard of the U.S., the results would be catastrophic. There are even more ominous clues in the field of glaciology, where scientists are reporting a sudden and rapid contraction of the earth's glaciers. To put it simply, the glaciers are melting. This is confirmed by everyone who researches the subject. Events are beginning to move quickly. We're running out of time. In March 1995, scientists from two different groups, the British Antarctic Survey and Argentina's National Antarctic Directorate, reported seeing ice breaking up in Antarctica. (March is late summer for the South Pole.) Rodolfo del Valle, who heads the Argentinean team, actually broke down and cried when he saw the extent of what had happened. Ice that was 1,000 feet thick had cracked open for a length of 40 miles, exposing sea water below for the first time in more than 20,000 years. Eventually, what had been a perfect field of ice cracked up into tiny pieces, which, according to del Valle, looked "like bits of polystyrene foam smashed by a child." Again, this event was not properly reported by the American news media, but it's clearly one of the most profound clues to what's coming. It should be obvious to everyone that if the icecap is melting, there can be only one reason--the earth's atmosphere is heating up. DESPITE ALL THE evidence, there seems to be a small--but vocal--group of Americans who denounce as "environmental wackos" anyone who thinks the planet is getting hotter. This group is being led by Republican talk-radio gasbag Rush Limbaugh, who has actually been telling his audience there's no evidence to support global warming. Limbaugh should talk to David Rodenhuis, director of the Climate Analysis Center, a part of the National Weather Service. Rodenhuis and his group have been carefully monitoring global weather information. It's from their office that I obtained the information concerning the record-high global temperatures for the years 1990, 1991 and 1994. Another group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, composed of more than 2,000 scientists who work under the auspices of the United Nations, have confirmed these findings, and recently they speculated as to what might happen given a warming climate. In October of 1995 they released a report which said the planet will become hotter and wetter; large storm systems will intensify; deserts will become hotter, more arid and expand; food production may suffer; and ocean waters will probably rise noticeably. Their prediction seems based on recent solid facts. In October of 1991 and March of 1993, during major "noreasters," 100-foot tall waves were observed in the ocean south of Nova Scotia. Waves this high have never been seen before. Is this an example of storm intensification? As for the prediction that the world's deserts will become hotter and more arid, we need only to look in our own back yard. The vast Sonoran Desert already is one of the hottest places on earth. The June 1994 record-high temperature set in the deserts of California and Arizona is only the beginning of things to come. It won't be that difficult for Mother Nature to go another 12 degrees, from 128 degrees up to 140. Once you accept that notion, then start thinking about 160 degrees. After all, what's 32 more degrees? When Phoenix posts its first 130-degree day, people will begin to get the message. Animals migrate, but so do humans. Phoenix will become a ghost town, and Tucson won't be too far behind. When the cities of the Southwest become uninhabitable, we will have lost forever millions of square miles of territory, not to mention trillions of dollars of assets. Eventually, global warming will cause massive ice melting at the South Pole, and other cities in the United States will be seriously affected. There's enough ice covering the land mass of Antarctica that, should it melt, the oceans would rise by approximately 200 feet. What Americans don't quite grasp is that the typical elevation at the South Pole is about 10,000 feet, and it's almost all ice. In other words, the ice cap covering Antarctica is two miles thick. If this huge block of ice melts, it would flow off the continent and into all of the world's oceans. All of America's coastal cities would have to be evacuated, and even if only a portion of the ice melts, say 10 percent, we'd still lose the entire coast of Florida, including all of that state's major cities. Under a limited-melt scenario, New Orleans will have a special dilemma. Do they build a dike, or do they evacuate the city? Much of New Orleans is already below sea level. Washington, D.C., would have the same problem. Our nation's capital was built on a swamp, just barely above sea level. In view of the possible consequences, it's tragic the Berlin conference failed to reach consensus. Michael Oppenheimer, atmospheric scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, points out humankind is emitting 60 million tons of carbon dioxide every day from all sources. Every day! But because it's invisible, we really don't see what we're doing. Unfortunately, carbon dioxide emissions are not being reduced, but indeed they are being increased. Robert Priddle, executive director of the International Energy Agency, issued a report in April 1995 which clearly stated that given present trends, carbon dioxide emissions from human sources will rise approximately 30 to 40 percent above 1990 levels by the year 2010. Not only will this continue to enhance the greenhouse effect, but it will greatly speed things up. This, coupled with the fact that American scientists in Boulder, Colorado, recently announced that all their super-computer global climate models are inaccurate and that all previous projections should be thrown out the window, gives rise to speculation as to just what the future holds for all of us, starting, of course, with the spring and summer of 1996. Just how important is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? The Keeling Laboratory at Scripps Institution in La Jolla, California, has a carbon dioxide monitoring site located at the peak of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Keeling officials say their instruments reveal we have now reached carbon dioxide levels of 360 parts per million. This is significant because during a period of normal climate, C02 levels are only 280 parts per million. During an ice age, C02 levels are 190 parts per million. As you can see, it doesn't take much of a swing to make a big difference in the earth's climate. At 360 parts per million, there can be no doubt we'll see climate and weather changes. The important question is how rapid will this change be? And what will happen when we reach 400 parts per million? Making the situation even more ominous is the staggering amount of carbon dioxide stored in the peat moss beneath the frozen tundra of the Arctic. If the tundra thaws, and the evidence suggests that it will, then the earth itself will suddenly release several hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The climatologists term this kind of action a "positive feedback mechanism." Basically, what it means is that the greenhouse effect is feeding on itself. There are also hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide stored in the earth's forests and rainforests. As we cut down these forests, or burn them down, with each passing year more and more carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere. Also, we've recently lost millions of acres of forests around the world to natural wildfires, because hot temperatures have persisted for weeks on end and the forest have turned bone dry. This is what happened to Yellowstone National Park in 1988, and it's been repeated all around the world. These trees are releasing millions of tons of carbon dioxide. If the situation worsens, there is no doubt the greenhouse effect will build upon itself and start to accelerate. As the oceans grow warmer, they'll release even more water vapor into the atmosphere. We'll have an enhanced hydrologic cycle. Water vapor is already increasing, and we haven't even kept records on it for very long. This poses the possibility of a vicious cycle--the "runaway greenhouse effect" of which many scientists warn. The process could easily become irreversible. All life on the planet's surface will die. HUMANKIND MUST drastically restrict the burning of fossil fuels, and we must do it immediately. Will the U.S. government lead the way? It's doubtful. As Will Rogers used to say, we have the best congress money can buy. Today, we have the best administration and congress that oil money can buy. Somehow we've got to get the truth out; but doing so is not going to be easy. There will still be diehards who refuse to see the handwriting on the wall. Undoubtedly it will take something drastic to wake people up. Fortunately, it may happen sooner rather than later. What should we look for? Barring a major volcanic eruption somewhere on the earth, it appears that 1996 is going to be a real cooker. First, be on the lookout for more ice melting or cracking at the South Pole in February or March. Then, look for a heatwave in India and Pakistan in May which will kill hundreds or thousands of people. In June, watch the daytime temperatures in the arid American Southwest. Then, we might look for a heatwave in the humid American Southeast this summer, which will be witnessed by just about everyone on earth because the Olympics will be underway in Atlanta, Georgia. If the Olympics are postponed or suspended due to abnormal heat, perhaps that will be the evidence all humankind needs to convince governments to take action. Finally, I'd just like to mention some clues I've observed. I'm writing this article as of early January 1996. I live in Nogales, Arizona, at an elevation of 4,000 feet. Normally at this time of year there have been numerous freezes and the land is somewhat barren. Right now, however, everything is green. The hills are alive with green. Mesquite trees which should have lost their leaves long ago are still green. Nor have the apple trees around my house lost their leaves. Arizona just had the warmest November on record. September and October were also excessively hot. Everybody around here thinks the weather is fine. Do I think it's fine? No. I'm worried. I fear what the future will bring. I fear what May and June will be like here in Southern Arizona. I fear my trees will not survive the hot weather that's sure to come; and if it doesn't come in the summer of 1996, then certainly in 1997 or 1998. Why do I think this? Because of one given certainty: Emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are constant on a daily basis; they are increasing, and they show no sign of stopping. And this is the worst sign of all. Michael Burns is an environmentalist and writer. His novel Hot Planet is available at most independent bookstores in Tucson. Burns was scheduled to appear on the John C. Scott radio show Friday morning, February 16, on KTUC, 1400 AM. The Conservative Consensus: Why Three Hot Summers Don't Mean Global Warming. THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE is rather like the level of unemployment: hard to define or measure, and easy to misunderstand. Whenever the Northern Hemisphere has an unusually hot summer, newspapers attribute it to the greenhouse effect. Whenever it has a particularly cold spell in winter, the same papers ask, "What happened to global warming?" Both lines are misleading. Greenhouse gases are not the only factor affecting global temperatures. Some of the other factors are also due to human activity; industrial emissions of sulfur dioxide, for example, may have a cooling effect. Still others are quite natural, such as volcanic eruptions (which can cool the climate temporarily) and variations in the energy output of the sun. Almost all climate models suggest, however, that the world's average surface temperature ought to have warmed somewhere between 0.4 degrees centigrade and 1 degree centigrade since pre-industrial times as a result of the greenhouse gases emitted so far. So one of the clearest signs of man-made climate change would be the detection of such a warming. Studies of the global annual average temperature from 1861 to the present do indeed seem to show a warming trend. But such data must be interpreted carefully. Natural climate variations make it difficult to distinguish long-term trends. If there happened to be a natural temperature cycle which was at a minimum in 1861 and near a maximum at present, then plotting out temperatures over this time period and drawing a straight line through them could give a misleading impression of the trend. Take an analogy: If you made a series of hourly measurements of the brightness of the sun, starting at noon and ending at midnight two-and-a-half days later, you might well conclude the world was getting darker--and you'd be wrong. Of course, modern statistical techniques assume nothing so naive as a straight line. Instead, they attempt to explain observed variations in terms of a long-term trend (which may or may not be a straight line) as well as a set of fairly regular fluctuations about that trend. They thus reduce a complicated signal to a small number of fairly simple patterns. State-of-the-art statistical methods indicate a global warming of approximately 0.45 degrees centigrade since the beginning of this century. It isn't a straight line on the charts, but they clearly indicate a warming trend. But, substantial fluctuations have occurred around this underlying trend. This is particularly clear if we consider the most recent 30 years of measurements. Natural temperature fluctuations seem to be occurring on several time scales. Some of these fluctuations may be due to natural climate oscillations and may therefore be fairly predictable. Others may be completely random. Data which have been filtered in this way must be interpreted with caution. But whatever their origin, it appears these natural fluctuations conspired to make the late 1980s particularly warm, much warmer than would have been expected on the basis of the underlying trend alone. It's quite possible the world will cool over the next few years as the system "swings back" from the hot 1980s, even though the underlying trend remains upwards. These are very recent results, and aspects of them are still under debate. But the basic message for non-statisticians is clear: Three hot summers don't mean global warming, nor do three cold winters mean a new ice age. The most statistics can tell us at present is there does appear to be a genuine warming trend. Whether this trend is the effect of greenhouse gas emissions or of a natural fluctuation due to some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism cannot be determined from an analysis of the global mean temperature alone. Such natural, century-time-scale fluctuations appear to have occurred in the past (although none in the last 9,000 years was as large as the projected change over the coming century). Unambiguous detection of climate change is likely to be a painfully slow process, involving much more detailed comparison of climate model results with observations. There is no climatic counterpart to the Antarctic ozone hole. We must not expect a single, dramatic discovery to confirm "global warming" once and for all. If we wait for that discovery, we will wait for a long time--until well after it is too late to do much about it. --From The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Based on a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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